LONDON: Google has a new sheriff keeping watch over the wilds of the Internet. Austrian-born Gerhard Eschelbeck has ranged the British city of Oxford; cavorted at notorious Def Con hacker conclaves, wrangled a herd of start-ups, and camped out in Silicon Valley.
He now holds the reins of security and privacy for all-things Google.
In an exclusive interview with AFP, Eschelbeck spoke of using Google’s massive scope to protect users from cyber villains such as spammers and state-sponsored spies.
“The size of our computing infrastructure allows us to process, analyze, and research the changing threat landscape and look ahead to predict what is coming,” Eschelbeck said during his first one-on-one press interview in his new post.
“Security is obviously a constant race; the key is how far you can look ahead.”
Eschelbeck took charge of Google’s 500-strong security and privacy team early this year, returning to Silicon Valley after running engineering for a computer security company in Oxford for two years.
“It was a very natural move for me to join Google,” Eschelbeck said. “What really excited me was doing security at large scale.”
Google’s range of global services and products means there are many fronts for a security expert to defend. Google’s size also means there are arsenals of powerful computer servers for defenders to employ and large-scale data from which to discern cyber dangers.
Eschelbeck’s career in security stretches back two decades to a startup he built while a university student in Austria that was acquired by security company McAfee.
What started out as a six-month work stint in California where McAfee is based turned into a 15-year stay by Eschelbeck.
He created and advised an array of computer security startups before heading off to Oxford. Eschelbeck, has worked at computer technology titans such as Sophos and Qualys, and holds patents for network security technologies.
